It is an object of the present invention to provide a pill dispensing package that is child resistant in the sense of resisting dispensing of pills by a child, that is day compliant in the sense of providing facility for observing each day of dispensation, and/or that is compact and may be readily carried in a pocket or purse. Another object of the present invention is to provide a child resistant pill dispensing package that employs preassembled blister packs of pills to be dispensed, and in which the package may be readily disassembled by a pharmacist or user to replace the blister pack when empty. Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a blister pack configured for use in such a pill dispensing package. A further object of the invention is to provide a pill dispensing package that achieves one or more of the foregoing objectives, that is economical to manufacture, and that has an extended operating lifetime under conditions of normal use.
A pill dispensing package in accordance with a presently preferred embodiment of the invention includes a circular base having a pill dispensing opening adjacent to its periphery. A circular package disk has a peripheral array of frangible elements containing pills to be dispensed disposed for selective alignment with the base dispensing opening, and indicia for indicating dosage periodicity. A circular cover overlies the package disk and is moveably secured to the base. The cover has a window for observing the periodicity indicia on the package disk, and a button for manual urging against the package disk to dispense a pill through the base opening from the frangible element aligned with the opening. The cover is resiliently urged axially away from the base and circumferentially with respect to the base, and is constructed to permit limited axial movement and limited circumferential movement with respect to the base. When the cover is moved toward the base, the cover engages the package disk for rotating the disk with respect to the base and thereby advance the package disk for the next pill dispensement. Pill dispensement requires both axial and circumferential motion of the cover with respect to the base, as well as depression of the button on the cover, a series of movements that resists use by a child.
In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the circular package disk comprises a disk element having a peripheral array of openings for selective alignment with the dispensing opening in the base, and a replaceable blister pack having pill-containing frangible elements disposed in alignment with the openings in the disk element. The base, disk element and cover are of molded plastic construction. A first circumferential array of spring elements is molded integrally with the cover for engaging the base through a central opening in the disk element resiliently to urge the cover axially away from the base. The cover has integral arcuate legs that extend through arcuate openings in the base for securing the cover to the base. The base has arcuate spring elements integrally molded adjacent to arcuate ends of the openings for engaging the legs on the cover and thereby urging the cover circumferentially with respect to the base. Teeth are integrally molded on the cover and around the central opening in the disk element for engagement between the cover and the disk element when the cover is moved axially toward the base. Thus, to dispense a pill from the blister pack, the cover is moved axially toward the base to bring the teeth on the cover and disk element into engagement, and then moved circumferentially with respect to the base. The amount of circumferential movement, determined by the size of the arcuate openings in the base relative to the size of the arcuate legs on the cover, corresponds to the angular separation between blister elements in the blister pack. When the cover and blister pack have been moved one angular increment, the cover is released and returned by the circumferential spring elements to its initial position. The corresponding dosage indicia may be observed through the window opening in the cover, and the button integrally molded on the cover may be depressed to dispense the corresponding pill from the blister pack through aligned openings in the disk element and the base.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a blister pack of pills that includes a flat circular base having a plurality of frangible elements containing pills to be dispensed around the periphery of the base, and indicia for indicating dose periodicity on the flat circular base radially aligned with each associated frangible element. There is at least one gap equal to two such angular increments between elements in the array, so that a package including the blister pack may be initially provided by a pharmacist to a user without a pill-containing element in registry with the dispensing button and the dispensing openings in the package. First use by the user will thus require axial and circumferential motion of the cover with respect to the base to advance the blister pack to the first dispensing position, at which the pill may then be immediately dispensed. In this way, there will not be a pill-containing element in registry with the dispensing button and the dispensing opening except immediately prior to each dispensation.